Planning on my own merchant account
 

As all those ISPSes suck more and more I am pretty close to getting my own merchant account. I already talked to my bank here in Europe and it's pretty clear that they would give me a contract for Visa and Mastercard. And the fee would bee less than 3% :winkwink: (compared to more than 14% I am now paying at iBill)

Still there are two concerns why I am hesitating ...

1) Chargebacks Ratio
With iBill I am now far below 0.5% but with my own merchant account I cannot use their blacklist any more.
I could scrub customers from suspicious countries but would that be enough to keep my cb low?

2) Chargeback Administration
With every cb you have to respond to letters and everything. Might that additional work exceed the savings I made?

Let me know what you think.

Did you tell your bank that you will be processing adult transactions?

If you plan on having your own merchant account, it makes much sense to use the services of www.netbilling.com

Yes, I did.

People here in Europe tend to be more open-minded than in the U.S. :thumbsup
Plus: I have a prime credit history :Graucho , plus I already have a merchant account for a non-adult business, ...

Plus you can get a merchant account for adult businesses. I think all these IPSP's have everyone brainwashed to think they are required to operate.

Most of those services are unable to accept merchant account numbers from my country. So I had to get one in their country (U.S., U.K. or whatever) which is much more difficult because banks there don't know nothing about my company and myself.

What country are you in?

Austria (small country south of Germany) ... not russian if you belived that :)

I've been to Innsbruck :glugglug

I live in <A Href="http://cms.graztourismus.at/EN/">Graz</a> - south-east of Austria.

Apply for an account with a gateway, that way you have the benefits of 3rd party (none of the hassles of manual labor you stated above), while not paying 14% (most charge 7-9% for adult).

talk to netbilling as already said. We plan to do the same soon

I think jettis.com is offering a similar service ... any oppions about them?

How much % ?

I will contact them next week and will let you know thorugh this thread.

sounds like a smart move.. but it must be possible to aquire lists of 'flagged' credit cards ?

WEll it depends where you are in Europe. In UK they don't let adult sites at all.

I thought IBill and CCBill both have their EU acquiring banks in the UK?

Actually iBills' EU bank is in Gibraltar which has it's autonomy from London ... especially in regards to banking and taxes. :Graucho

Try talking to Jettis...BTW for the 3rd party services I only pay 9%, so go figure what you would pay for a merchant service:)

Andre

I would love to be spammed with offers for such lists. :winkwink:

9% sounds way much better than 14%

you can use ccbill as your gateway too. they offer the service for people having their own merchant accounts and then you get to scrub through their database

I have as well been thinking on this to as well ,
but now if you are in that boat and have your own do you still have to deal with this 1% shit or what how does that now work
or is this just in place when you are with a 3rd party billing ?

We have had our own merchant account for 7 years. It is certainly less expensive then IPSP's. However we did need to develop our own scrubbing and blocking software.

You can work with Netbilling and they will do it for you or you can do it yourself.

If you want more advice email me and I will share what I have learned

lee at dreamnet.com

I have 2 merchant accounts, Jettis does a wondeful job administrating them for me. They handle customer support, chargebacks, all the back end stuff.

You got mail :)

I would really like to hear your final solution when it come so far. I'm looking for something similar.

Check www.adultrep.com
they look very interesting and the kind of services they offer are the ones we are all looking for now.

I got a friend with a small aff. program who is going to hire them and i think im going to give them a shot for my paysite too.

Just stay tuned on this thread.

By the way: F*ck iBill ... their CMI has been down for 3 days now ... OMG

jennycards, hi neighbour (Maribor) :thumbsup

I know Graz! I drive through Graz often when I go to Klagenfurt. Nice city :thumbsup

I drove through there going south from Germany on my way to Italy...

gorgeous country!

:thumbsup :thumbsup

A friend of mine just had her merchant account frozen when she went above the 1% cb ratio. If you're not doing big numbers, it's easy to push past that 1% when a couple of members chargeback for a lengthy membership (3+ months).

She switched all of her sites over to PSW Billing & says she's making more sales now than before, plus less admin hassles.

But I've heard plenty of people swear by their merchant accounts too...so I guess you just need to find what works best for your business.

Good luck!

Which bank?

I have some very good recommendations for merchant account and a processor to use, contact me if interested. I gain nothing from it, just could help you out..

Yeah, I think that it's REALLY pathetic. I expect better service than this especially for the thousands upon thousands we make them each month..

Hi,

We are not simply an IPSP that does merchant account gateway processing as an afterthought. Our system and tools are built for that as is our entire business model. We can cascade multiple merchant accounts within 1 Netbilling admin. Nobody else does that as I know of.

Mention GFY and we will waive our setup fee and take excellent care of you for your products and/or memberships. We are also integrated with MPA2 and opther affiliate programs as well.

Toll Free within the US: (888)357-8166
Outside the US: (661)252-2456

Mitch

p.s. Jenny, do not worry about Ibills negative database. Our scrubbing is extensive and you have use of our global database as well as the ability to set your own scrubbing level within our system.

FYI - Jettis are excellent, and also supply a full affiliate tracking system (Jumbo)

NetBilling is also a solid option, but I think Mitch will recommend MPA2 for your affiliate tracking

I also think the IPSP's offer a gateway service. I am sure iBill does, and I think CCBill does too. Not sure on Paycom if they do or not

Jettis and Netbilling seem to get the most accolades on the board these days.

:thumbsup

The way things are going in 6 months they might be the only ones left. This is getting a bit nervewracking.

Besides the merchant discount (roughly 3%, depends on your deal and the card type) there are also other fees which add up quick. deposit fees, passthru fees, etc. read the small print and do the math. Most ISPIs work on
thin margins and high volume, getting your own merchant account might not be worth it in the end.

If you do decide to go it with your own merchant account, don't worry about a few CBs blowing you out of the water you have to have at least 100 CBs in a month before the 1% or 2.5% limits apply.

Anyone who wants to use their own merchant account will be VERY happy if they have the right company behind them.

:-)

Mitch

problem with an actual merchant account is if you get hit with a FINE of say 10k is what mastercard wants to fine people if they go over the 1% that would mean you would have to come up with 10k in cash to pay that instead of the IPSP eating the fines.

Just a thought some of those fines can get to be pretty hefty and even if you run an honest and legit business one bad apple could end up costing you several thousand in one whack in fines alone!..

something to think about.

Mitch,

What acquirers do you work with?

mike

Are you sure they accept adult websites? Their page looks rather mainstream ... and they are owned by WellsFargo Bank.

Seems here in Austria everything is a little bit different.
As far as I know there is no fixed cb% limit, no cb fees or fines and merchant accounts are not handled by banks but by VISA or Mastercard (=Europay) themselves. :)

I think one very important reason for getting your own merchant account is marketing.

With your own merchant account you can offer very flexible "specials" to your customers ... for example: 3 months for 49.95 after that period recurring billing for 14.95 per month. Or you could mail all existing rebilling customers and offer them to add a 1-year membership "for just 129.95".
Or you could email all cancelled accounts and offer them to renew their accounts for a reduced price ... without them having to reenter all their data -- because you have them on file.

You cannot do this with an ISPS because you dont have the CC numbers and they are not flexible enough doing that (at least not for a small guy like myself).

I look forward to Slovenia joining the E.U. and the Schengen contract very soon ... than we can finally travel to each other's country without those f*cking borders in between. :thumbsup

By the way ... if there are a few more adult webmasters in this region we could organize an "Adult Webmaster Get-Together South-East-Europe" ... I could bring Austrian beer and my g/f :winkwink: